Fast Company | Business + Innovation: The first was director of special projects for Tim Ferriss, the bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body. Secondly, I was the co-founder of a profitable tech startup.
Both gigs had highly desirable qualities: I got to work on exciting projects, collaborate with talented people, and I was making good money. For a 25-year-old, I was living the dream.
But then I quit.
12 comments:
This article is really interesting. Everyone has their own thing that picks them up. One thing that I have found that works really well are picture of animals. During the Monet project to power me to work I found a live stream of puppies on line and listen to Beyonce while working. It was very empowering and I was able to continue working. You just need to find what works for you.
I really enjoyed this article and I'm happy it's out there for others to learn from as well. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be pursuing a career that inherently lends itself to play. I do believe however that at times, in the heat of a stressful situation, we may forget this necessity for play. The key to applying play to practice is to differentiate between silliness and enjoyable high performance. A component of the play should be an interest in performing to the best of one's ability, in being excellent. This discussion is directly related to social psychology's top of self justification. When you working at a job you are doing for money rather than passion you are externally motivated. When you are doing something because you love it and need to do it to thrive, you are internally motivated. When good performance is rewarded our internal motivation is not harmed but when we are rewarded for simply doing something we lose interest and attribute our motivation to the reward. Ultimately, when we do something we enjoy and are rewarded only when performing highly, we will be very successful and happy.
This is a weird article, it is very easy to get burned out with a job and carrier that someone loves and wants to stick with. After last semester I had totally flat lines and I felt totally burnt out. At the same time I like that one of the bullet points in the article mentions, "making people laugh" because I am a HUGE advocate for finding the humor in the workplace. A place without laughter REALLY, REALLY sucks, time must go my too slowly, and I could see how someone would get worn out faster.
The author of this article is right, and we should all strive to live out our lives that way. It's a great way to stay positive, and working by playing is also often a matter of attitude and perspective. Sadly, quitting your job to do what you love isn't a possibility for most people. Of course it's better in the long run, but the world we live in today is more focused on short terms issues and solutions. Quitting your job might make you a better parent eventually because you'll be happier and less stressed, but tomorrow your kids need food on the table.
Like Michael, I feel very lucky that I am able to see my work as play, but I know that many simply do not have that option. In order for that to happen there needs to be a major change in the way education is formatted as well as how companies are run and jobs structured.
I agree that the author of this article makes a very good point. There are many people out there who are struggling to wake up and go to work every day because they simply have lost (or never had) the joy they used to get from through their work. It is sad that not everyone can find work they truly care about. However, I think this article is making a larger point in that everyone can find some sort of joy through their work, even if it is not exactly what they want to be doing. While at school, I have loved most of the things I have worked on. However, there have definitely been projects that I was less excited about. However, I think it is really important to find the positives in everything I do, and I think this is the point the author of this article was trying to make. Unfortunately not everyone can go to school or work and view it as "play." However, everyone can wake up every day and concentrate on the positives of their work.
This article is good. It really is, but there is a question that bothered me while reading this. Not everyone can just take their job and play. Some people need these jobs for survival, to help their family, and make sure their children can have a better future. I and many that I know are very fortunate that we can pursue careers that we can play and treat like a game. Sometimes people have jobs that aren't just mentally exhausting and something they can just say "I quit" because they have kids at home who are starving, the heating company stopped providing heat because you couldn't pay the bill, and you don't have anymore running water. This case is extreme and most likely not happening in America but it's somewhere.
This seems to be quite off topic... sorry, it was just on my mind because of a conversation I had earlier. All I'm saying is that we a very fortunate to be able to do this, and yes it's good advice for us very fortunate ones. But this isn't the answer for everyone. AHHH What am I saying. I'm sorry to anyone who reads this!!!
Okay, here: Yes! this is a great article! A lot of people out there are really unsatisfied with their jobs, even the ones who chose to pursue a hobby that they loved. I learned this in Social Psych and my friend and I were talking about it yesterday about how when you choose a hobby as a career, it's no longer a hobby. It's not a desired job anymore. The author of this article has it right. You need to change the way you look at work.
Ignore the previous comment I made, or don't... I don't feel like deleting it. I'll probably be embarrassed by it tomorrow... oh well.
oh my goodness... I had spelling errors too.
My name: Becki Liu
*we are very fortunate
and the grammar is pretty bad... Well, I guess that's why I'm not an English major! *wink!*
I definitely think that a positive demeanor and attitude can go a very long way. Especially in your job or something you consider to be your career. It is imperative to find the joy and fun in what you are doing or it can be very easy to get burnt out or just plain sick of it. Personally I like to think of the real applications of what I'm learning and what I'm doing and I felt that in high school for a lot of my classes I couldn't easily do that. But now that I am working and learning in a field that I am truly interested in and passionate about, I find the joy in what I do.
I will start off by saying, obviously not everyone always has the opportunity to do this and that it simply isn't possible all of the time. That being said, I have never put it in words, but I am a big follower of this philosophy, so much so that sometimes things that I just don't care about or "meet my criteria" just fall to the wayside and get done at the last minute. However, assuming you don't only do this, but try to apply it as much as possible, you will definitely not burn out (or at least not as fast), you will be happier, and you will enjoy life more. So I always encourage people to do what they love, find enjoyment in the process and work, and they will succeed. What Michael said about motivation from Social Psych is entirely accurate, internal motivation is what is needed for people to truly enjoy life, at least in my opinion.
I really liked the author’s voice in this article; you can really tell how much they love what they do (at least once they realized that they could). I think that it’s super important that a job be different from work, and I hope that at some point I’ll have a job, rather than work. Of course, I also acknowledge the fact that I’m probably going to have work right when I leave college, and that a job that I love might be a ways off. One day in the shop I was having a conversation with Ben, and I referred to the new 3D printer as a toy. He basically told me that it was a toy, and that his job was fun, and he told me that the most important thing about a job is that it shouldn’t be work. That’s one of the big reasons why I’m glad that I’m going into theatre. It’s something that I really enjoy, and that hopefully, no matter what I’m doing, won’t be work (at least not too much).
I really liked the author’s voice in this article; you can really tell how much they love what they do (at least once they realized that they could). I think that it’s super important that a job be different from work, and I hope that at some point I’ll have a job, rather than work. Of course, I also acknowledge the fact that I’m probably going to have work right when I leave college, and that a job that I love might be a ways off. One day in the shop I was having a conversation with Ben, and I referred to the new 3D printer as a toy. He basically told me that it was a toy, and that his job was fun, and he told me that the most important thing about a job is that it shouldn’t be work. That’s one of the big reasons why I’m glad that I’m going into theatre. It’s something that I really enjoy, and that hopefully, no matter what I’m doing, won’t be work (at least not too much).
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